


God Already Gave You His Answer

by sleep_and_feel_no_pain



Series: sugar honey ice and tea [5]
Category: Slipknot (Band)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Complicated Relationships, Cruelty, Domestic Violence, Established Relationship, Face Slapping, Fights, Guilt, Jealousy, Love Triangles, M/M, Obsessive Behavior, Obsessive Love, Physical Abuse, Possessive Behavior, Pre-Relationship, Threats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:08:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25988713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleep_and_feel_no_pain/pseuds/sleep_and_feel_no_pain
Summary: Corey's figuring some stuff out about what's going on between Jim and Joey. And he is decidedly unhappy about this. Bad things happen.
Relationships: Jim Root/Corey Taylor, Joey Jordison/Corey Taylor, Joey Jordison/Jim Root
Series: sugar honey ice and tea [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1479977
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	God Already Gave You His Answer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Synnerxx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synnerxx/gifts).



> For Taylor, as always.
> 
> Finally getting to the end of this series, I think. I know it's been a long time waiting on this installment, sorry about that folks! But it's finally here. Hopefully it lives up to the long wait.

It wasn’t really the looks that got to Joey.

Joey’s used to being stared at: he’s the smallest of his bunch; the oddball, the one with arguably the most eclectic tastes and ideas, save for maybe someone like Shawn Crahan. He worked in a mortuary for a few years, for fuck’s sake, and everyone knew it - that he messed with… err, helped… with the dead bodies of their town. So yeah. He was used to being given odd looks and stares, and has been since he was quite young.

So every time he’d feel that weird prickly feeling on the back of his neck, and he’d look up and find Jim staring at him, only to have Jim look away quickly as he turned bright red… well, that wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary. Maybe for Jim to be looking at _him_ , like _that_. Because for the past few years, if Jim was looking at him at all, it was to sneer at him or make some snide remark. Not to look at him like… _that._ So, it was weird.

Certainly, all that’s happened this tour… well, it didn’t really have much of a precedent, now did it? Not really, anyway. Something was definitely happening between them, even if Joey was hard pressed to actually give a name to the feelings swirling around inside his head, and deeper than that, inside of his heart, or chest, or… oh, man, he doesn’t even know. Fuck knows he’s tried talking to Paul about it. He’s even tried talking to Sid about it with even less success. Not since he was a stupid fucking kid has he had an issue like this with Jim Root, and he feels a little out of his depth.

He sighs heavily, nose wrinkling as he looks down at the itinerary in front of him on the small table where he’s sitting, trying in vain to force himself to focus. He glances at the clock: 2:17. This guy is supposed to call him from Metal Hammer at 3:00, so he has to somehow push away the chaos and noise in his brain enough to get through this interview.

Jim clears his throat somewhere behind him, and he almost jumps with the sudden noise. It’s quiet on the bus, everyone off doing their own things elsewhere, save for Jim; and only the quiet melody of Jim’s long fingers picking the strings of his acoustic slightly distracting him from his task. Joey doesn’t turn around; he doesn’t have to. He can feel Jim’s eyes on him even from here. 

He doesn’t know why he feels so agitated. Jim’s not even doing anything. But lately it’s been so weird between them, and between himself and Corey, and Corey and Jim, that it all feels like it’s building to something epic, and that feeling keeps Joey up at night almost as much as the soft sniffles coming from Jim’s bunk do. 

Ever since the other night.. the early morning when he and Jim had gone to breakfast together and Jim had kissed him in front of the bus, it’s been building. _Building_.

~~~~~~~~

The interview goes pretty fast once it gets going, and he’s so distracted by the questions he’s being asked that he barely even registers Jim getting up and leaving the bus. He looks around, standing up, sighing again and debating on what to do in the hours before soundcheck, when he hears raised voices outside the bus.

“What do you mean by that, exactly?” He hears Corey’s voice over the other general noise of the festival going on in the distance. Corey sounds angry, bitterness and scorn coloring words nearly spat from his lips.

“Nothing.” Jim’s voice, much softer, much more unsure and unsteady, answers Corey’s, and now Joey is finding his way to the bus window, his heartbeat picking up with the sudden movement and with the tension he senses between them.

“Oh, bullshit!” Corey’s gesturing wildly, the cigarette between his first and middle finger ashing from the sharp movements of his hand. “I can fucking see that you’re off in La-La Land half the time now, when you’re even in the same vicinity as Joey. Something is fucking going on, and you need to fucking tell me!” 

Corey is panting, his shoulders rising and falling with his quickened breaths, and Joey finds himself holding his own as he watches them, not liking the quick, sharp tone to Corey’s voice that he’s come to know so well.

“I told you, it’s nothing. Just don’t worry about it.” Joey swallows hard as he watches Jim’s tall, lean form hunch even more, Jim drawing deeply from his own cigarette as he brings it to his mouth, his words coming out along with the smoke. Jim’s nearly cowering in the face of Corey’s anger, and it’s almost enough to make Joey run down the steps to confront Corey right then and there, out of fear that Corey is about to strike him.

But he can’t. It’ll only make things worse, he knows, when Corey gets Jim alone. And he can’t chain Jim to his wrist and protect him forever. Especially since Jim and Corey have their own thing away from him. And he isn’t just talking about Stone Sour, either. 

Joey thinks about the implications of what, exactly, might be happening here. It doesn’t exactly take a rocket scientist. Corey must be suspicious about Jim’s looking at him, about them spending time together, about… just them in general, lately. Corey has always gone to such great lengths to keep himself and Jim at odds, and it’s not too hard to figure out what crawled up Corey’s ass.

He’d gone to fairly great lengths himself to keep Corey from finding out about their last tryst, the night he’d brought Jim to his room to inspect the wounds he’d known Corey’d given Jim for his involvement with him. He hadn’t expected to feel the way he’d felt that night; he hadn’t expected his heart to break with every new scratch, every bruise and cut he’d found along Jim’s pale skin. He’d found himself completely swept away in wanting to make it all better. All he wanted was to somehow make amends to Jim for causing Corey to do that to him. 

His guilt was a heavy burden, for sure. But what started with guilt ended with…. well, Joey didn’t really wanna think too hard about what the buzzing really meant, what it meant when his soul felt so alive with the energy between himself and Jim. All he knew was that it meant trouble for Jim, and he couldn’t be the one to cause Corey to hurt Jim again. Not because of him.

And it’s for that reason that Joey doesn’t wait too much longer to make his way down the bus steps, his small feet pounding as loudly as he can make them as he clomps his way to the ground, acting oblivious to the situation at hand. He turns on his brightest smile, looking between Corey and Jim, his voice cheerful and lighthearted.

“Hey! I just got done with that dude from Metal Hammer. Same old tired ass interview questions. Why can’t they ever come up with anything new or interesting?”

Jim barely looks at him, Joey notes, keeping his head down as he keeps nervously raising the cigarette dangling between his fingers to his lips. Corey, on the other hand, turns his sneer on him.

“Can’t you see we’re in the middle of something?” Corey snaps. 

Joey shrugs, working hard to keep himself dauntless, unfazed. He smiles pleasantly at Corey. “Oh. I didn’t know. What’s going on?” He dares another glance Jim’s direction, but Jim just turns away, presenting him with more of his back than before, looking out over the venue.

Corey’s eyes narrow a little. “I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to find out.” Corey’s eyes are sharp, razor-like, beneath his sunglasses, and Joey can only tell because he can feel the weight of his glare. “You’ve both been acting fucking weird around each other lately, but neither one of you will cop to what the fuck is going on.”

“Because nothing _is._ ” Joey makes sure to really punch the last word, glad that Corey’s focus is on him now instead of on Jim, and he gives the slightest of nods to Jim as Jim chances a sidelong look at him, giving him permission to take leave of the situation altogether. 

He can handle Corey all on his own, of course. He always does.

“Bullshit!” Corey tosses the spent cigarette in his hand down to the ground and stomps on it with the toe of one of his Chucks. “I can fucking tell! You fucking behind my back, Joe? I fucking told him to leave you the fuck alone!”

Joey shakes his head, letting his eyes roll a little, even though Corey’s stepping closer to him, a bit threateningly, as Jim starts off in the other direction. He sends a tiny smile to Jim as Jim looks back at him over his shoulder as he walks away.

“There! There, you see?!” Corey points to Joey’s face, his finger inches away. “What the fuck was that?”

“What was what?” Joey’s hand instinctively reaches up to push Corey’s finger out of his face. “God, you’re fucking insane. It was nothing!”

“You fucking sent him some signal, Joey! I fucking saw it!” Corey’s fuming, his face is turning red now, and Joey holds in a sigh at how dramatic Corey Taylor can be when he has a mind to be. 

“Just calm down. Let’s go on the bus. People are starting to stare.” Joey turns and heads back up the stairs, relieved when Corey follows after him instead of going after Jim instead.

Corey flops down on the couch, pulling off his sunglasses, his brows low over his eyes and his lips pursed in an angry scowl. 

“Dude. What is your malfunction?” Joey knows that poking the bear that is Corey Taylor isn’t so good of an idea. But maybe if he makes Corey angry enough at him, he can get this fight really going and get all of Corey’s aggression and aggravation out on himself. That way he won’t have to worry about Corey going after Jim after their set tonight, either. 

Corey doesn’t answer, doesn’t move an eyelash. It’s almost enough to make Joey stop and reassess the situation. A quiet Corey is a dangerous Corey, and he’s seen Corey strike like a coiled cobra after falling deathly quiet in this way. 

But it doesn’t stop his jaws from flapping, doesn’t stop his tongue from lashing out with razor-sharp precision. “Whassamatter? Afraid he’ll tempt me away for good?”

Joey’s aware, the second the words leave his lips, that he’s just overstepped the boundary of where he should safely wander. Corey’s head snaps up, eyes somehow darker, much more cold than usual beneath his lowered brow. His voice is clipped and far more controlled than the unrestrained yelling he’d been doing outside. “So... you admit it, then.” 

Not a question. A statement. 

Joey hesitates for a moment, finding it’s taking a bit more effort now to look as unperturbed as he has managed so far. He forces himself to meet Corey’s eyes, forces himself not to tense at the barely-collected rage he can see there behind his icy glare. “I admit nothing. I’m just saying that you’re freaking out over not-a-goddamned-thing. As usual.”

Corey’s head shakes back and forth, and a dry, rueful laugh colors the breath he lets out. “You’re just as fucking bad as he is. But it doesn’t matter. I’m putting a fucking stop to this shit, whether either of you will admit to it or not.”

“Putting a stop to what?” Joey can’t help but pick at some invisible lint on the sleeve of his shirt, just for some kind of reason to glance away from those eyes. There’s something unusually unnerving about Corey when he’s in a mood like this. Thankfully, it doesn’t happen very often. But when it does, Corey is terrible in his anger. Unpredictable as a force of fucking nature. 

“This.” Corey waves his hand in front of him vaguely. “Late-night, early-morning pancakes, and shit.”

Joey feels the blood in his veins freeze for a moment, and his heartbeat seize in his chest; just a slight hiccup in the normal process of life, and he struggles to not let it show on his face. “What the fuck are you talking about?” He inwardly winces at the way his voice doesn’t sound near as self-assured as it did even moments ago. He can’t show weakness now. Corey’s like a shark, and showing weakness is only chumming the waters. 

A sneer turns the corner of Corey’s upper lip, and he snickers cruelly. “Thought I didn’t know, huh? Thought I was fucking stupid, and wouldn’t catch on. But no. I know you went out together. And you’ve been acting weird ever since. Not as weird as Jim. But weird.” Corey picks up a discarded water bottle, the small amount of water left in the bottom swishing as he squeezes the plastic in his fist. 

The threat is unmistakable. It’s such a small thing, but the crunch of the plastic in Corey’s hand, coupled with the false-calm tone of Corey’s voice, is enough to tell Joey that he needs to abort this mission, and abort it now. Before Corey reaches the boiling point. 

“Okay,” Joey’s hands go out in front of him in a supplicating fashion, “okay. You caught us, Corey. We did go out. But it means nothing. Okay? We’re just... we were just hanging out. That’s all. Nothing happened. Not then, and not since.”

Corey falls silent again, the plastic crunching again as he shifts his grip on the bottle, staring at Joey. Joey doesn’t move, and works hard to hold Corey’s gaze. He just needs to seem sincere enough to convince Corey that he’s making something out of nothing. That’s all, and then it’ll be okay. He can just diffuse the situation, and they’ll go back to their uneasy peace. 

“Corey, please...” Joey starts.

Corey cuts him off. “And before?”

Joey licks his lips, his mouth feeling a bit dry. “Before what?” He tries to seem cool as he takes the few steps over to the mini fridge in the corner, bending to take a beer out and twist off the lid. 

“Before your date.” Corey hasn’t taken his eyes off of Joey, staring at him in that creepy, unsettling way as Joey moves. 

“Um. I don’t know where you’re getting this, man. Nothing’s happening. You have no reason to worry.” Joey raises the bottle to his lips, taking a long draw off the beer, thankful for the moment to have something to hopefully break the tension and help him regain some of his control. 

“Ohhh, but that’s where you’re wrong. But like I said, it doesn’t matter now. Cause it ends right now. Right fucking now.” Corey meets Joey’s eyes again, doesn’t blink. The swirling rage there doesn’t lessen; if anything, it only darkens those eyes more. And Joey knows that there is no way to convince Corey that nothing is going on between him and Jim. 

He changes direction, then, hoping to find another way to diffuse. “Corey....” Joey sighs heavily and goes to sit down next to Corey on the couch, careful to leave space between them. “What is it you’re trying to say, exactly? You don’t want me to hang out with Jim anymore? Is that it?”

“That’s exactly fucking it. You’re gonna stay away from him altogether. Or else.” The plastic crunches again in Corey’s fist, harder this time. 

“Or else....?” Joey’s voice trails off in question, his eyebrows raising slightly. 

“Or else, you won’t like the end result. I promise you that.”

Joey stares at Corey, blinking, running the words over in his head a few times before responding. “What’s the ‘end result’?” 

Corey’s sneer returns, wrinkling his nose. “Just hope it doesn’t come to that. I wouldn’t wanna have to do anything drastic to get what I want.”

“And what do you want?” Joey knows they’re talking in circles here, but he’s trying to elicit a minor blow up on Corey’s part, to ensure that he’ll get mad at him instead of more angry at Jim. “Just me to stay away from Jim? That’s it?”

“Quit fucking playing games, Joey. It isn’t gonna work.” Corey tosses the water bottle aside, and his fist clenches without it this time. 

“I’m just trying to be clear on... your expectations. Why do you want me to stay away from him so bad? He’s my guitarist, too. He’s my friend... or, well, sometimes he is, anyway. What’s so wrong with going to get pancakes together? I don’t get why you’re making this such a big deal.” Joey widens his eyes, putting on his most innocent look. Yes, be sure to add some confusion in there for good measure... Joey’s brows raise more. Yeah, that’s good. 

He nearly jumps when Corey’s voice raises again. “You fucking know why already! So stop acting like you don’t!” 

“Because you don’t want us fucking. Yeah, I got that. But I already told you we aren’t. So why can’t you just believe me?” Joey cautiously reaches a hand out, landing it on Corey’s knee, rubbing gently, like he’s trying to calm a wild animal. That’s how he sees Corey sometimes. Wild, unfettered. 

Corey’s hand snaps down onto his wrist like a bear trap, making Joey gasp at its bruising grip. “Because I know you’re fucking lying. You’ve been fucking, ever since that night we all had the threesome and I found you in bed the next morning, you’ve been fucking. I don’t know how many times, but I know it’s still been happening.”

“Let go of me!” Joey’s arm twists, trying to free himself, but Corey’s grip only gets tighter. “You’re gonna sprain my wrist, man, and then I won’t be able to drum. Fucking _stop_!”

“Not ‘til you fucking admit it.” Corey levels another sharp gaze on him. “Tell me the truth.” He squeezes even harder, making Joey squeak. 

“I don’t owe you an explanation or anything other than what I’ve said!” Joey forces the words out, and they’re strained with the pain of Corey’s twisting of his wrist. He’s sure he can feel the tendons and bones grinding beneath his grip, but he knows he can’t give in. _For Jim’s sake._

Corey moves lightning fast, and Joey doesn’t even have time to react as Corey jerks him forward, his other hand swinging over and landing a stinging slap to the side of his face, hard enough to make Joey’s head snap to the side, his neck wrenching. “Fuck you, you don’t owe me an explanation! You’re _my_ boyfriend, Joey, and you owe me everything!” Corey’s eyes are wild again when Joey looks, and now that the blowup he’s been trying for is here, he can’t help but be a little afraid. 

Joey whimpers a little as the pain explodes along his cheekbone and makes his ear ring on that side, his eyes narrowing, and he scrambles back on the couch as Corey releases him quite suddenly, his breath coming in stuttering pants. His hand immediately cradles the side of his face gingerly, staring at Corey. “You... you motherfuck—“

“You always fucking do this!” Corey’s loud voice booms over his own, drowning out his words. “You needle and push and this is always the end result. You could fucking stop it by just being honest, but nooooo. You gotta keep on playing games!” 

Corey leaves the couch, pacing back and forth like an angry tiger in the small space of the bus. Joey stares at him, his own eyes sharp with anger now.

“You fucking make me sick.” Corey spits on the floor at his feet as he stops in front of Joey, looking down at him cowering on the couch. “You push me to do shit I hate, push me into being something I don’t wanna be. You bring it on yourself, every fucking time!”

“I didn’t do anything to you, fuck!” Joey’s own voice raises this time, and he drops his hand from his face. “You said you wouldn’t hit me anymore, Corey. You said last time was the last time—“

“And you keep fucking lying to me! You said we were gonna be better this time around, that you weren’t gonna lie and sneak around, that you weren’t gonna cheat and fuck around!” Corey booms. “But you keep sneaking around, behind my back, you and Jim.”

“It was just breakfast!” Joey angrily grinds the tears that try to come away, continuing to yell back at Corey. “You’re acting like a fucking crazy person when nothing even happened! What the fuck do you want me to say? Admit to something that didn’t happen? Cause I won’t fucking do that!”

“Stop lying!” Corey screams, and lunges at Joey, aiming to slap him again, but this time Joey is better prepared and gets his legs up, planting them against Corey’s torso and pushing with all his might, sending Corey flying backwards, off-balance. 

Corey’s back hits the table across from the couch with a painful thump, and Joey can see the absolute rage in his eyes now, Corey’s face redder than ever with it, and he scrambles to his feet, taking a defensive posture, sure Corey will charge him again. 

“Don’t, don’t!” Joey’s breath is coming hard and fast now, adrenaline pumping his blood. “Don’t you fucking do it, Corey!” 

Before things can get worse, a crew member appears, coming through the bus door. “Guys, soundcheck.”

Corey stands up, brushing his shirt off, straightening it, the rage in his eyes cooling like water dumped onto a brush fire. Slowly, Joey relaxes, not taking his eyes off of Corey for even a moment, not wanting to be caught unawares again. 

“Be right there.” Corey answers the crew guy, and they both stand still, waiting as the footsteps of the crew member go back down the bus steps. 

“This isn’t fucking over.” Corey’s voice sounds poisonous now, the words hissed between clenched teeth, one finger pointing threateningly at Joey, before he turns and heads for the door of the bus, leaving Joey alone on the bus to follow. 

And he does, slowly, cause what else can he do? His stomach churns with Corey’s threat. But at least, he reasons, he accomplished his goal.

Corey was furious with him. So maybe he’ll leave Jim alone. At least for now. 

————————-

The show goes on without a hitch, and Joey’s sure it’s some small miracle when it’s all he can do to focus enough to play the songs with the ferocity they deserve. 

He never was quite able to drop completely into Being One. Not tonight. He moved on muscle memory alone, going through the set list almost in a mechanical way as he watched Corey nearly the entire time from his vantage point behind his massive kit. He couldn’t help wondering how Corey always seemed so able to discard his emotions at will, just shed them like a shirt that had gotten soiled. Nobody, even the other members of their band, were able to tell what had happened between them a couple of hours before the huddle, and other than Corey studiously avoiding even making eye contact with him, nothing seemed apparent to anyone else. Joey saw Jim keep nervously glancing between Corey and himself, but that wasn’t so out of the ordinary. Corey was his usual loud-mouthed, boisterous self, and to everyone else, everything seemed more or less business as usual. 

And it’s not until they’re all loaded into the buses again that Joey’s even able to stop and take stock of where everyone has landed. They’re headed straight for their next gig tonight, driving straight through, so there won’t be much time for sorting things through, he figures. But one of the first things he realizes once they’re all loaded up and started down the road is that Corey’s not on the bus with him.

 _Okay_ , Joey figures. _Not necessarily a bad thing, after what happened earlier._

But the problem is, neither is Jim. 

They’re already a few miles down the road when Joey goes searching in the usual places he finds Jim after a show, and he realizes Jim must be on the bus with Corey. He feels his stomach knot up painfully at the thought, a sort of sick realization setting in that he hadn’t been more vigilant about things in the hussle after the show broke. He was almost sure he’d made Corey mad enough to go after him instead of Jim. 

He knows that Corey likely won’t do anything too terrible with everyone in such close quarters, but that’s not really the issue - or it’s not the whole issue, anyway. The thought that Corey had the mind to plan this out, and would now have all night to work on Jim’s mental state, is enough to have Joey pacing the thin hallway up and down the bus so many times that after his third or fourth round, Paul reaches out and tugs him down onto the couch next to him. 

“Dude. Come on, man. You’re making me nervous. What’s going on?” Paul takes a deep drag of the piece of the joint between his two fingers, before he offers it to Joey. Joey hesitates only a moment before taking it and taking a hit himself, trying to ignore the way Paul is looking him over. He can feel Paul’s judgement even before he looks back at him, exhaling the smoke in a thick cloud. 

“It’s nothing,” Joey finally sighs, handing the joint back to Paul. 

“Nothing? Oh, I’m sure. Just like that bruise on your cheek is nothing. Right?” Paul takes the joint and takes another hit, keeping his voice light and his expression as neutral as he can manage, but there’s a darkness of anger backlighting his eyes that belies his true feelings on the subject. “So, he’s back to hitting you again?” Paul doesn’t even have to state who _he_ is. 

Joey mumbles unintelligibly under his breath, shrugging as he looks away again. Oh, how he hates that sharp slice of shame that always comes when people see that Corey’s slapped him around again.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought,” Paul takes the last hit off of the joint and mashes it out in the ashtray, sighing as he lets out the smoke in a thick cloud. “Dude… I know I must sound like a fuckin’ broken record at this point. But fuck. You’ve gotta get away from him. You should know by now that he’s bad news. At least, he is relationship-wise.” Paul coughs at the harshness of the smoke, his hand rising to cover his mouth, and his voice comes out a bit gruff when he speaks again. “You gotta stop letting him do this shit to you.”

Joey sighs heavily, his head lowered. Paul’s right; he does sound like a broken record. He’s heard this speech so many times he could probably recite it in his sleep. But he knows Paul means well. “Yeah, I know,” he replies, looking over at Paul after a few minutes. “It’s just… not as easy as you’d think.”

“Pfft. Sure it is, dude.” Paul grabs for his bass, cradling it against his chest for a moment as he looks at Joey. “Just tell him where to shove his shit.” His hand slides up over the frets, and he starts mindlessly picking out notes.

“Yeah, and then what? I’ve still gotta be in a band with him, remember? Do you really think he’s gonna let me just… walk away? He’s fucking psycho or something. He’ll blow a fucking fuse and it’ll be like World War III. And there’s no telling what he’ll do to...” Joey’s voice trails off as his stomach flips at the thought of what Corey would do to Jim, his face scrunching. _What he could be doing to Jim right this very moment._ The fuzziness of the weed is settling over him now like a fog rolling in, and even though he only took one solid hit, it makes the paranoid thoughts rolling around in his head worse, a thin sheen of sweat forming over his brow. “Fuck. I need off this bus.” 

He gets up, seeing Paul shaking his head at him out of the corner of his eye as he hurries up to the front cabin of the bus.

“Hey, uh...” Joey clears his throat, his stomach doing another flip of nervousness as he speaks with the bus driver, his eyes fixed on the taillights of the bus in front of them through the windshield. “You think we can make a pit stop soon? My stomach isn’t feeling so great.”

“Oh yeah? Well, we gotta keep to schedule tonight. Do you think you can hold off about an hour? Or is it an emergency?” The driver answers.

Joey holds in a sigh, wanting badly to stop as soon as they possibly can, but he knows that Shawn will be pissed at them all if they stop just so he can get Jim away from Corey. There’s already been too many incidents between the three of them on this tour alone. Reluctantly, he nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I can wait. Just... as soon as you can, okay?”

“No problem, Joe.” The driver gives him a friendly smile, to which Joey forces one in return, retreating back into the bus again. 

_An hour. Only an hour. Just gotta get through it, and then he can stop whatever Corey’s started tonight._

The problem with this, of course, is that Joey knows just how much damage Corey’s manipulative tactics can do on Jim in that timeframe. 

Corey’s ominous words echo in his brain. _”This isn’t fucking over.”_

He plops back down next to Paul, the feeling of ants crawling under his skin at how unsettled he feels about the whole thing.

“Just relax, man. There’s not much you can do. Jim’s a grown man. He can handle himself,” Paul’s voice, meant to placate, drones on over his racing thoughts. Joey doesn’t even look at him, hating that Paul knows too much, knows exactly what’s going through his head at the moment. He hates the fact that Paul has had to be such a sounding board for this mess between the three of them, just by virtue of being his best friend. It’s just another way that this stupid love triangle has rooted its insidious poison through the fabric of their band. 

_How he hates the words: love triangle._ Can this even be called “love” anymore? 

Beside him, Paul’s now gone silent, the deep twanging of the bass strings adding an accent note, keeping time with his troubled thoughts. 

_”This isn’t fucking over.”_

Digging out his phone, Joey does the only thing he can think to do. He pulls up a text thread to Jim, typing a simple sentence.

_”Whatever crap Corey tries to feed to you tonight, just don’t believe him without talking to me.”_

The text goes unread as he stares at it. 

_Less than an hour to go._


End file.
